As the mercury rises and the government finally admits that 'just taking your jumper off' isn't a valid heatwave strategy, Britons are flocking to buy solar panels to power the fans they’ll soon be legally entitled to use at work. Meanwhile, Google is having another crack at smart glasses, presumably hoping we’ve forgotten the last time they made us look like cyborgs, and hackers are plundering GitHub repositories with the sort of efficiency the Environment Agency can only dream of when licensing fly-tippers. It’s a brave new world where cows get waste carrier licences, but you still can’t find a clean river to drown your sorrows in.
🎵 (s)Hit of the Day 🎵
Version 1
Version 2
📜 Lyrics 📜
[Intro]
[Sound of distant radio static, a muffled tube train announcement, and a dissonant prepared piano strike]
[Spoken Word Intro]
Yeah... nice weather for it.
[Verse 1]
The climate advisers have finally cracked
Suggested a maximum, oooh, strictly tracked
A temperature limit for working class sweat
Before the office workers are slow-roast meat
They offer us six simple ways to stay cool
Open a window, play it by the rule
Pray to a sky that remains stubbornly grey
While the mercury rises and rots in the hay
[Chorus]
It's the Thermometer of the State
Keeping us boiling while we simmer and wait
It's the Thermometer of the State
Open the window and accept your fate
[Verse 2]
The public are snapping up solar panel deals
Trying to wrestle the energy bill, change how it feels
A green revolution, a self-powered dream
But the countryside isn't quite all that it seems
Beau Vine the cow has a licence to shift
Waste carrier registration, a convenient gift
The Agency tightened the gate with a frown
But the livestock had bolted and headed for town
[Bridge]
[Prepared piano stabs, discordant and metallic]
[Whispered]
Shut the gate... after the horse... after the cow...
[Spoken forcefully]
After the profit's been made!
[Verse 3]
Google is dusting off smart glass designs
With A.I. embedded in the frames and the lines
Definitely not annoying, definitely not weird
While the rivers run thick with the things that we feared
Roblox is scrutinised, spending and harm
The kids in the digital, clinging to arm
Of a Musk-Altman trial, a spectacle, see
Of massive egos and a quiet victory
The industry wins while the hackers get in
GitHub revealing where the codes have been
We can't keep a river clean enough to swim
But they navigate systems on a paranoid whim
[Chorus]
It's the Thermometer of the State
Keeping us boiling while we simmer and wait
It's the Thermometer of the State
Open the window and accept your fate
[Outro]
[Fading vinyl crackle, guiri rhythm slowing]
[Spoken]
Accept your fate.
Open the window.
Beau Vine is waiting.
Thermometer... rising.
[Final dissonant zither chord]